Clementine
Clementine is a major character in Last of The Walking Dead. A mature, kind, and polite girl, who in time developed more brash and forceful traits, Clementine struggles to adapt to the harsh world around her after being sheltered from it for most of her life. Biography Background and Early Life Clementine was born shortly after the outbreak, only a year after the pandemic crisis of 2011. After learning of his wife Diana’s pregnancy, Clementine's father Ed made the brisk judgment of leaving the FEDRA quarantine situated in Atlanta, the one they had lived in for nearly 5 months, with the intent of finding a healthy, safer home for their daughter. Diana and Ed left the facility in the midst of the night, hiding in the outskirts of Georgia, where together they built a modest farm, staying there in seclusion for the next 8 years. Clementine grew up in that sheltered environment, hardly aware of any of what occurred beyond her doorstep, knowing nothing but the strong affection and devotion bestowed upon her by Diana and Ed. Only a few weeks before her 9th birthday, the FEDRA troops had lastly been able to track down Clementine’s house with the full intention of gunning down any and all of it’s occupants. Upon hearing the terrifying noises made by the marching FEDRA soldiers, Clem was told by her mother to run as fast as she could, taking with her only a small backpack containing enough supplies for a few days, as well as some of her personal belongings. ‘’Wait for us, and be safe.’’ were Diana’s final words to the girl, before she escaped through the house’s backdoor. A few miles away from Clem’s house was a lake shore, one her father would occasionally take her to when they went fishing. In that place, far away from her home, they had built a small cottage and a treehouse, and it is there that Clementine waited for her parents… yet after days and nights of solitude, and a growing feeling of utter despair, they never came. Long after the girl had begun to give up hope however, a man named Lee found her and took her under his wing with the promise of keeping her safe. Weeks, months, years went by… Lee and Clementine travelled east, then north, in an effort to avoid the FEDRA armed forces roaming through the state of Georgia. Clementine was however, kept in the dark regarding the connection between FEDRA and their constant moving from place to place. Staying away from large settlements, opting instead for small groups, first they stumbled upon the motor Inn, where a man named Kenny and his family were situated along with many others. Surviving on their own after the motor inn group’s passing, Lee and Clementine developed a great bond, protecting each other and holding out hope that one day they would find a home for them. While roaming through North Carolina, Lee and Clementine stumbled upon a group of FEDRA refugees situated in a cabin far north. There they learned of an infamous FEDRA operative solely named Carver, who had allegedly been on their tail for months. Though their time spent with the cabin group was a peaceful one, it soon came to an end when the FEDRA soldiers led by Carver located their hideout, kicking off a witch hunt against the cabin group and killing many of them in the process. Lee and Clem would eventually outrun Carver’s military force in Ohio, enduring a harsh winter in the process. With all their newfound companions either dead or captured, Lee and Clementine kept on moving without looking back, having only the company of one another. It had been 4 years since they met. Now pushing through the desolated cities of Pittsburgh, Lee and Clementine intend to find the large, infamous group known only as the “Fireflies’’, seeking above all to finally bring an end to their life of continuous running. Spring, 2025 Following a messy run-in with the Saviors while trying to make their way out of Pittsburgh, Clementine and Lee flee to the roof of an abandoned coffee shop, where they scout a bridge leading out of the city being used as a Savior outpost, the two steadily beggining to plan their next move. Clementine and Lee are then suddenly met with a man and a girl, Joel and Ellie respectively, with both groups mistaking each other for bandits and getting into a brief, violent dispute: Clementine tackling Ellie, leading into the latter being forced to hold a knife to Clem's throat. After their intentions were made clear, the two parties reluctantly decide to work together to escape the city after some rest. Despite Ellie's attempt to apologize, Clementine ignores the girl out of disdain for her and Joel. Hours later, the group settles on a plan to use one of the bandits' freshly dead body as a disctraction, placing it against the horn of a nearby car. Their plan backfires however, when the body reanimates, grabbing Clementine by the ankle. The girl is promptly saved by Ellie, and the two of them make their way to Joel and Lee, who had been waiting for them in the gate leading to the bridge. Unfortunately, because of a large truck standing in their way, the group is forced to climb it one by one using a small ladder, one that Clementine acidentally ends up breaking during her turn, leaving Joel without an escape route. While Ellie is quick to jump down back to his side, Lee grabs Clementine by the arm and forcefully drags her out of the scene. Clementine is disraught by Lee's actions, becoming deeply upset with him for leaving Joel and Ellie to their presumed death. That is, until they encounter the two of them struggling to stay afloat much later, in a beach under the Pittsburgh bridge. While still in disarray, the group agrees to travel together for the unforseeable future, their goal being to find the Fireflies. Clementine vents her frustration to Lee after they're able to talk on their own, their argument coming to an end with an affectionate hug. Clementine and the group are later forced to push on through the sewers, their only way of progressing into the subrubs outside of Pittsburgh. Though they're met with obstacles such as large pools of water and packs of Clickers, the group is able to continue to a small refuge. It is there that Clementine apologizes to Ellie for acting scornful the previous day, the two girls making peace with one another by sharing a candy bar, and each of their stories to each other. Soon after, the group is separated after Clementine and Ellie fall into a current of sewage, the two girls being dragged into the suburbs, having to cooperate to find Lee, Joel and the radio tower they had arranged to meet them at. Clementine and Ellie bond further after the former suggest they play a question game, which they continue to do until hiking to the top of a mountain where they spot the radio tower they are headed to. The two girls take shelter inside a house where they later spend the night, cooking a nest of eggs and playing a brief game of darts. It is during nightfall that Ellie is caught by Clementine cleaning the infected bite in her arm, forcing her tell Clem about her immunity and her friend who had since passed away, Riley. Later that night, they're reunited with Lee and Joel, Ellie deciding to likewise tell Lee about her secret. After reaching the tower, and finally coming to terms with Ellie's condition, Clementine and the group fix up an abandoned car, which they use to finally leave the city behind and head to Jackson, where Joel's brother lived. They come to a stop in the small city of Plattsburg, where after being surrounded by infected, they are saved by Dwight, who informs them that he is willing to share supplies with them if they're willing to follow him to a safe-zone named Paradise Outpost. Desperate and uncertain, the group reaches a stalemate that is only solved when Lee proposes to go alone, against Clementine's protesting. Keeping in touch with the girl via a walkie-talkie, Clementine, Joel and Ellie await his return in an abandoned hardware store. Ellie shows Clementine her joke book in an effort to cheer her up, and Clem responds by opening up about Sarah, Jane and the rest of her old group, all of them long gone by then. When Lee returns, it is discovered that three strangers: Tara, Ben and Troy, had hidden themselves inside the van he drove in, in an attempt to escape from the Saviors and the Paradise Outpost. In the middle of the confusion, Troy drives off with the van with Clementine still aboard, having seen through his plan before he was able to steal their only vehicle. Though she is able to force Troy to turn around, the van hits a walker during a moment of distraction, Troy grabbing the girl and jumping off the van before it crashed against a tree, saving her at the expense of himself. Lee reaches the scene shortly after, having followed the Van on foot, and charges at Troy, pushing the injured boy against a tree. This action causes friction between Lee and Clem, who berates him for attacking Troy, and later for wanting to leave him to die. Clementine and Lee, at the girl's fierce insistence, carry an injured Troy back to the hardware store, where the girl takes care of his injuries with the help of the rest of the group. Despite her best efforts, Troy refuses to talk to her or anyone else, a trend that continued long after their departure from the abandoned store. Clementine's group reaches Jackson after three months of travelling on foot, being greeted by Tommy and Andrea inside the Hydroeletric Dam they used as an outpost. Clementine, although hopeful that she'd be able to find clues about her parents, is met with nothing time and time again. Lee offers to cut her hair later that day, and when Clementine seeks assurance on the subject of her parents, Lee does that by telling her that it was possible they were still out there, and that they'd be proud of her wherever they were. Andrea offers to take Ellie and Clementine on a horse ride to their community, which they do with the company of Carl, a young boy who resided in that very community. There, Clementine is met face-to-face with Jane for the first time in three years, the woman happening on the Jackson community long before they had. After a tense catching up with her friend, Clementine and Ellie attend to a gather of other children that night, where they each share their own stories around a campfire. Killed Victims This list shows the victims Clementine has killed: * Sandra (Caused, Zombified) * Winston (Caused) * Sam'' (Accidental; Caused, Out of Mercy,)'' * Reggie (Indirectly Caused) * Sarah (Caused) * 1 unnamed Savior * Freddy (Caused) * Reggie (Savior); (Caused) * Numerous counts of zombies Relationships [[Ellie|'Ellie']] Though their first encounter was less than cordial, with time, Clementine is shown to get along with Ellie quite well, even coming to terms with the fact that the girl may just be one of her closest friends. Though Ellie was the first one to attempt to close the gap between the two of them, it wasn't until the group made their way through the sewers that Clementine made the choice to open up to her, offering Ellie a candy bar as an apology. After being forced to make by on their own, separated from Lee and Joel, Clementine and Ellie grew further closer, the two girls confiding in one another, culminating in Clementine's insistence that they could sleep in the same bed. While Clementine finds out Ellie was infected and had been keeping her immunity a secret, learning that fact does little to hurt their relationship, the two of them promising not to keep any more secrets from each other. Clementine is shown to be annoyed at times by Ellie's more jovial persona, but has acknowledged that it's also partly what makes her so engaging to be around. By the end of the Pittsburgh arc, Clementine demonstrates her trust in Ellie by recounting to her what led her to become so distant: the passing of Sarah, and the departure of Jane, hoping above all else, that neither of those things will ever happen again to someone she cherishes as much as Ellie. [[Lee Everett|'Lee']] While their relationship starts off as nothing more but a helpful stranger and a little girl, their bond strengthens over the course of their years spent together. Lee is without a doubt one of Clementine's greatestest influences, perhaps even more so than her own parents, having been the one to teach her about the outside world, allowing her to be capable enough to survive it. As Clementine began to mature and grow into her own way of thinking, their relationship became gradually more difficult, hindered even further by Clementine's continuous attempts to prove that she can stand on her own two feet. In spite of their hardships, Clementine still views him as family, and trusts him above anyone else. [[Joel|'Joel']] Clementine and Joel have a less-than steady relationship, Joel himself seeming rather indifferent to Clementine initially. Though they've come to trust and respect each other to an extent, Joel's blunt and cold nature often puts him at odds with Clementine, who continues to view him as someone who's willingly detached himself from her and the rest of group. [[Jane|'Jane']] During their short span of time spent together, Jane and Clementine were able to form a connection of mutual respect with one another, quickly evolving into a friendship Clementine continues to cling to long after Jane's desertion. Given the events that followed it, Clementine has since grown a slight bitterness towards her, despite missing her presence in her life just as strongly. Clementine is shown to display conflicting emotions when reunited with Jane years later, though the girl is ultimately happy to know someone from her old group was still alive. [[Troy|'Troy']] In spite of being severly at odds with him inititally, after Troy shields Clementine from a car crash, the girl is forced to realize that he was in fact a decent person, owing him for saving her life at almost the cost of his own. Clementine believes that Troy should show everyone else the same secluded compassion he showed her, and intends to help him do so every step of the way, whether he wants her to or not. Trivia * During the planning phase, it was decided that Clementine should not know about her parents' fate, and that Lee would be the one keeping it a secret, in order to add to his now much less significant burden of being a convicted criminal. * The fate of the cabin group was confirmed shortly after Jane was determined to have a role in the story, due to the improbability of reencountering both one of it's members and Jane in such a short span of time. * Ed taught Clementine how to swim at an early age, though she still seems to struggle somewhat when in deep water, particularly during the sewer section of the story. * Clementine's favorite story book is "Where The Wild Things Are", and the only one she still carries with her as of the Jackson arc. * Clementine has Cynophobia * In conversation, Clementine seems to swear the most around Ellie. * Despite having been homeschooled, Clementine's academic knowledge is rather limited. History being one small exception. * Clementine is the shortest character in Last of The Walking Dead by two inches.Category:Characters